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Farming against the odds: Life lately in Murtot

17 images Created 29 Mar 2022

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  • Lines on a plowland lead to Mt. Kilimanjaro in Murtot, Amboseli, in August 2021.
    Lines on a plowland foreground of Mt..jaro
  • A cow and its calf with the almost snowless snowcap of Mt. Kilimanjaro in the background.
    The remaining herd of livestock
  • Dorcas from Murtot feeds her daughter with milk from a traditional gourd (enkotii) on February 27, 2021.
    Milk is a staple
  • Matua from Murtot empties milk cream she has been accumulating into a pot on a traditional stove.
    Extracting cooking oil from milk
  • Matua examines the consistency the cooking oil she extracts from milk cream.
    Homemade cooking oil
  • Nina from Murtot secures sugar packed in small polythene bags on February 27, 2021.
    Turning yield into profits
  • A fallow field in Murtot, a small rural village in the highlands of Amboseli, Kenya, on October 4, 2020.
    Farm land left uncultivated
  • Sopiato looks, devastated, at the results of a poor yield. <br />
 <br />
A closer look at the beans on the sack show more chaff and dirt than actual beans.<br />
 <br />
She made the choice to sow only in a small area of her land this year, to avoid major losses. All together, she has only been able to produce a sack of beans, and even then, poor quality ones, affected by poor rainfall.
    More chaff than beans
  • Miriam from Murtot drops bean seeds to plant on her farm with the help of a friend, on November 20, 2020.
    Sowing on signs of rain
  • Miriam removes weeds invading her bean crop on her farm on January 10, 2021.
    Weeding out after rains
  • Nina from Murtot examines the quality of harvested beans on February 26, 2021
    Making merry from good harvest
  • Nina and Miriam work with a group of men to load empty pods into a lorry for transportation, on February 26, 2021.
    Gathering harvest stubble
  • Livestock feeds on dried empty pods from a trough.
    Livestock feeding on harvest stubble
  • Sylvia from Tanzania, prepares a land for planting on October 4, 2020.
    Slashing and burning
  • An unidentified farmer from Tanzania ruminates over his poor yield, sitting on the only sacks of beans he was able to harvest.<br />
<br />
This Tanzanian farmer has been leasing land here in Murtot for more than five years now. Usually, an acre of land yields him about 10 - 15 sacks of beans. But not this year. <br />
<br />
As one who has been leasing land for more than three years now, he has to pay for each acre he leases. This year, he counts his financial losses, as yields weren't high enough to cover leasing costs.
    Ten sacks less of harvest
  • Nina carries a pitcher of water back home on February 27, 2021. <br />
<br />
Nina does not own a water tank. She hasn't been able to keep any of the rain water from the short rains we received recently.<br />
<br />
To get water, Nina often sets on a whole day's journey to an area close to the border of Kenya and Tanzania. It is now close to evening, and she is returning home, after leaving at sunrise. <br />
<br />
Nina makes this journey almost each day. This is the challenge she is faced with lately, managing with only one pitcher of clean water.
    No harvest for rain water
  • Samar offloads her donkeys carrying water pitchers on October 4, 2020. <br />
<br />
In our culture, the donkey is considered the woman's animal. It is the one that women use for most domestic activities, and as such, the animal that women have most decision making power over.   <br />
<br />
Samar, my neighbor and friend, owns two donkeys. She leaves her house at daybreak to go fetch water to a place a half day's journey away. If she is not there early enough, she can find the water point closed off. <br />
<br />
She has a very small tank, which can barely hold enough water for her entire household.
    Making do with what we have